To all the brand new college graduates who majored in a liberal arts field, I have a message: If you want to be a leader, you did the right thing.

This is a controversial message at a time when every village and town seems to be offering coding classes for kindergarteners and America's dearth of STEM majors is conventionally viewed as a serious problem. None of that is wrong. Coding is becoming the literacy of the modern economy, and everyone should be conversant with it. Companies in energy, IT, and other fields want to hire more good STEM majors than they can find; of course they want a larger supply. Along the way, liberal arts have become desperately uncool except among a band of earnest evangelists who argue that it's a solid foundation for whatever else a young person may want to do.

The thing is, the evangelists are right, especially with regard to leadership. "Look, the Army for a long time, many of the services have been looking for some very technical-type majors coming out of schools to deal with the technically advanced army that we have," Lt. Col. Peter Godfrin, who heads Harvard's Army ROTC program, told the Harvard Gazette recently. "But just from the conflicts that we've seen in recent years, the technological advances only get us so far. We need to be able to communicate and negotiate with folks; we need folks at the highest levels who can think through complex problems because ... unfortunately, warfare is a human endeavor." Colin Dickinson, a Navy officer who majored in economics, told the Gazette, "I can honestly say that I have drawn upon my learning in everything from marine biology to the tales of Homer in my attempt to best serve my sailors and lead them to success."

What's true for the military is true more broadly. David Kalt, an entrepreneur whose latest venture is an online musical instruments exchange called Reverb.com, wrote on Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal that "our chief operating officer is a brilliant, self--taught engineer with a degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago. His determination and critical-thinking skills empower him to leverage the power of technology without getting bogged down by it. His background gives him the soft skills - the people skills - that make him stand out as someone who understands our customers and knows how to bring the staff along." Kalt spent years urging students to major in computer science and engineering rather than liberal arts. But his recent article is called "Why I Was Wrong About Liberal-Arts Majors."

Advice on choosing a major obviously isn't useful for new graduates, so here's a message for students about to enter college: College isn't trade school. Whether you major in a liberal arts field or STEM or anything else, you emerge not with the skills that will make you successful at a specific company but rather with a foundation for more learning. As advancing technology takes over more of the world's left-brain work, the skills of deep human interaction, of leadership, are increasingly in demand. What a liberal arts education gives you - critical thinking, clear communication, the lessons of Homer - is growing more valuable, not less.

]]>http://fortune.com/2016/06/02/what-future-leaders-need-to-learn-in-college/feed/0145031610geoffreycolvinWhy your boss wants you to join Toastmastershttp://fortune.com/2015/07/22/toastmasters-public-speaking/
http://fortune.com/2015/07/22/toastmasters-public-speaking/#respondWed, 22 Jul 2015 15:37:36 +0000http://fortune.com/?p=1217503]]>If you take a stroll around Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta and peek into people's offices, you'll notice that some of the walls are festooned with silver-embossed blue ribbons. Charles Miller, for one, has more than 20 of them, along with several other awards, all from Toastmasters International. Coke KO started an in-house Toastmasters club way back in 1972. But Miller, who is manager of financial systems and accounting, got involved just three years ago. "I thought I was a pretty good communicator when I went in," he says. "But it turned out there was a lot to learn."

Toastmasters isn't new, of course--the nonprofit has been around for 91 years, and now has more than 300,000 members in 14,650 local chapters worldwide--but it's lately been growing like crazy inside U.S. companies. About one-third of the Fortune 500, including Apple AAPL, AT&T T, Exxon Mobil XOM, Google GOOG, Microsoft MSFT, and Disney DIS, now sponsor their own clubs. Bank of America BAC has 60 of them. During the past year, according to Toastmasters, more than 790 new ones have sprung up.

The reason: Although it's best known for its longtime mission of helping people be more proficient (and less panicky) public speakers, the organization has recently expanded its activities to include leadership training.

The Coca-Cola club, dubbed 310 North for one of the company's original street addresses, is typical. The group meets every Thursday morning at 7:30 for an hour and half. Everyone gets a chance to give a short impromptu presentation and a brief prepared speech. Then attendees evaluate each other's talks, including "what was effective and what could be improved," says Miller.

Beyond that traditional agenda, however, the club has lately added conferences, workshops, and town-hall-style Q&A sessions with top company executives, all aimed at polishing up-and-comers' people skills, including how to run productive meetings and encourage frictionless teamwork. Miller says that he's learned from Toastmasters "how to be a better listener, and how to 'read' people and respond in the right way."

It's no coincidence that these corporate clubs are multiplying just as millennials are flooding the workplace. Often, their bosses suggest they sign up. "The Toastmasters program does not specifically tell young people about the hazards of too much reliance on texting and email," notes Suzanne Frey, a Toastmasters manager. But, once they start going to meetings where their presentations are rated by peers and higher-ups, she adds, "they 'get it'" and "start realizing what effective workplace communication looks like."

Or, as Miller puts it, "A text or an email is fine for sending a few facts, but to connect and collaborate on a deeper level, in-person conversation is really irreplaceable."

]]>http://fortune.com/2015/07/22/toastmasters-public-speaking/feed/0public speakingAnnieCoke’s leadership formula: Sending its rising star execs away for six weekshttp://fortune.com/2015/05/14/coke-leadership-program/
http://fortune.com/2015/05/14/coke-leadership-program/#respondThu, 14 May 2015 15:54:24 +0000http://fortune.com/?p=1121664]]>On Monday, two-dozen Coca-Cola executives will become reacquainted with something they haven't seen for the past six weeks: their desks.

Since early April, this coterie of up-and-coming senior managers has been busy mixing with members of the C-suite at corporate headquarters in Atlanta, riding along on a Coke delivery truck in Florida, and visiting a wide range of internal operations and customer sites across the United States, Mexico, and Indonesia.

The globetrotting is integral to a leadership development program that Coca-Cola KO launched in 2013. Called the Donald R. Keough System Leadership Academy--in honor of the former president of Coca-Cola, who died in February--it aims to expose participants to the entire business, end to end.

Along the way, the participating executives are expected to take in what Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent has described as a combination of "head knowledge and heart knowledge"--specific principles and practices to navigate a rapidly changing business landscape, as well as a deepened passion for the beverage maker's culture, values, and brand. (Disclosure: I spent two days teaching this year's group about managing innovation as part of my work at the Drucker Institute.)

Coca-Cola's challenges are well known. While the company is among the world's most admired, consumers are drinking less of its biggest product--soda--as they become more health-conscious. In turn, Kent has embarked on a campaign to boost productivity and cut costs.

For Coca-Cola's emerging leaders, the question is how to thrive and help their teams succeed "in the incredibly dynamic environment in which they operate," says Delia Cochran, the company's global director of capability, who oversees the Keough program.

Coca-Cola is hardly the only company working on this. Talent consultants at Bersin by Deloitte and Development Dimensions International say they see rising interest among major corporations in fostering executive development--though there's still plenty of room for more, with just seven cents of every training dollar spent in this area, according to Bersin.

"There's a new speed in business," says Dani Johnson, a Bersin vice president. "A strategy that worked two years ago isn't going to work two years from now. Decisions have to be made more quickly--and companies want to make sure that their leaders have the ability and confidence to make those decisions effectively."

The Coca-Cola program stands out in several ways. To start, few companies are willing to take top managers offline for a month-and-a -half. For those in the Keough Academy, emails and phone calls to their offices are highly discouraged.

"I've heard of a lot of leadership programs--but never an immersion like this at senior levels," says Doug Conant, the former CEO of Campbell Soup, who now serves as chairman of the Kellogg Executive Leadership Institute at Northwestern University and chairman of Avon Products.

The benefits of Coke's all-in approach are threefold. First, it allows those in the program to focus on just one thing: learning. Second, it forces the troops at home to step up and assume new duties, giving the leaders valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of their units.

"It's not just a stretch for us; it's a stretch for our teams," says Prashanthi Jella, a senior director in the company's R&D lab, who is attending this year's Keough Academy. She has 21 people reporting to her.

And third, traveling with your peers for weeks on end creates lasting bonds. During the session that I led on innovation, several of the Coca-Cola executives and their bottling-network colleagues, who also take part in the Keough Academy, discussed how they could collaborate on projects in the months ahead.

The Keough Academy is also distinct from other leadership programs in that its participants largely fly blind. They receive no advance agenda, and don't know much about what they're going to be doing in a particular location until they get on the ground. "That's by design," Cochran explains. "It takes them to a place of discomfort"--and, in that respect, nurtures the fast-on-your-feet thinking that's required in their day jobs.

In addition to some classroom lectures, the curriculum also includes a bit of role-playing as a way for the leaders to sharpen their listening skills. And at the conclusion of the program, they commit to a capstone project, to be completed when they return to their regular assignments, based on what they've absorbed throughout the six weeks.

But for many, the most valuable aspect of the program is getting out in the field and observing what's happening in markets other than their own. Andy McMillin, a senior vice president for Coca-Cola trademarks in North America, who was in last year's Keough contingent, says that the time spent in developing countries spurred him to adopt a "different mindset."

For instance, he brought back to his team some new packaging ideas that he saw in India. In Mexico, meanwhile, he learned to adjust his management style. "Mexico is one of our best-executing markets," McMillin says, because the executives there are "brutally honest" about what they need to do to constantly improve. He now encourages more open debate within his own team.

For Coca-Cola, there are surely other rewards--though they may take a while to materialize.

"The company is telling these people that they're more than a number in the system," says Barry Stern, a senior vice president at DDI. "I can't overstate the importance of that."

Indeed, while Coke won't disclose its budget for the Keough Academy, it's clearly considerable. And that isn't lost on those who are nominated by higher-ups and selected for the program. "I just look at the amount of investment the company has put in me," says Amit Tibrewal, Coca-Cola's vice president for business development in Hong Kong, who is in this year's Keough cohort. "That means they think I have what it takes to get to the next level--and with that comes a real sense of responsibility."

Rick Wartzman is the executive director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University. The author or editor of five books, he is currently writing a narrative history of how the social contract between employer and employee in America has changed since the end of World War II.

]]>http://fortune.com/2015/05/14/coke-leadership-program/feed/0Coca-Cola: Step away from the sodasolster2Who wants to be CEO? Not millennial women.http://fortune.com/2015/04/03/millennial-women-ceos/
http://fortune.com/2015/04/03/millennial-women-ceos/#respondFri, 03 Apr 2015 11:00:45 +0000http://fortune.com/?p=1064711]]>We’ve all heard about the pay gap. Now, let’s talk about the aspiration gap.

In a recent study by talent management firm Saba and WorkplaceTrends.com, just 36% of respondents who said they aspire to a C-level position at their company were women. Also disinterested in the top job: Millennials, who accounted for only 31% of those who said they wanted a spot in the C-Suite. That compares with 68% of older employees wanting top-level jobs.

What’s going on here? When it comes to women, there’s one obvious factor at work: A lack of role models. Just 20 CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are female. And while a story revealing that more big companies are run by men named John than are run by women sounds like it belongs in The Onion, it actually ran in TheNew York Times.

“You can't be what you can't see,” says Caroline Ghosn, founder of Levo League, an online community dedicated to helping women in the early stages of their careers. “If I look up the food chain in my company and I don't want to be any of the people that I see, what’s my incentive to advance?”

Ghosn isn’t surprised by the millennial stat. There’s a big crossover between what women and millennials want in the workplace, she says. Both groups prioritize work-life integration, a sense of purpose, and transparent communication. “What we’re seeing is a convergence of gender and generations,” she says.

Of course, you don’t have to be gunning for the corner office to be a leader at work. Emily He, Saba’s CMO, says she’s seen a shift in how workers–particularly younger workers–are defining leadership. Rather than zeroing in on a specific title, they are focusing on becoming influencers in their field and making an impact at their company, she says. To really engage young women at work, she says, employers need to recognize this shift.

One way simple way to do this is to provide employees with more opportunities to learn new skills. The study also found that the majority of HR employees report that women request the most development opportunities, yet are also the most likely to say that their managers aren’t supporting their attempts to progress. If nothing else, says He, companies should look at development as an opportunity to hold onto younger employees. After all, millennials make up the largest chunk of workers who say that they plan to leave their current firm within a year. If employers want to hold on to talented young women--and perhaps see them rise to the top of the ranks one day--actively providing opportunities for employees to develop and learn new skills is their best shot.

]]>http://fortune.com/2015/04/03/millennial-women-ceos/feed/0Businesswoman sitting in meetingkristenlbellstromWhy Emory sends its MBAs to a U.S. Army base for traininghttp://fortune.com/2014/07/18/mba-us-army-training/
http://fortune.com/2014/07/18/mba-us-army-training/#respondFri, 18 Jul 2014 14:01:53 +0000http://fortune.com/?p=746411]]>(Poets&Quants) — It's not unusual for newbie MBAs at a business school to be tossed into a bootcamp for a day of team-building exercises. But Emory University's Goizueta Business School has a twist on that old routine.

Emory's MBA students literally head for the barracks--the U.S. Army barracks. The day-long outing is part of the one-year MBA "Leader's Reaction” course, where students spend a day working together to conquer military-style obstacles. Although it’s not the first school to utilize military activities for learning purposes, Goizueta is one of the few that makes it part of a required course.

The location: The historic Fort Benning military base, about 90 minutes south of Emory in Columbus, Georgia, where the U.S. Army helps to prepare combat-ready troops.

The mission: gain and apply leadership skills via nine military obstacles, some of the very same grueling hurdles used to train members of the United States Army.

Addressing some 50 MBA students lined up like new recruits in basic training, Army Lieutenant General Ken Keen told them that the day's exercises would not only test their physical strength but, more importantly, their mental toughness as well.

"There's a good chance you'll get wet today." quipped Keen, humorously alluding to the makeshift moats that they were destined to plummet into at least once. "If not, we can accommodate that for you."

Keen's gentle joshing belies his record of commanding elite military units, including those in Special Forces, and leading soldiers on missions in Pakistan, Central America, South America, and Haiti. Keen, who joined the business school in 2013 as Goizueta's associate dean of leadership development, spent 38 years in the U.S. Army.

His personal mission at Goizueta has been to prepare students for leadership at all levels through curricular and experiential learning. As a long-time Army commander, he was influential in getting Fort Benning to open its gates to Emory’s business school.

At Fort Benning, students divided themselves into teams according to the study groups they share in the classroom. And then they were off.

In nine groupings of about five to eight students each, the teams rotated between nine "lanes" which were separated by cinder block walls so the other teams couldn't see what lay ahead in the next rotation. At each lane, a different student served as the team leader, receiving mission instructions from an Army facilitator. Once those instructions were given, it was up to the team leader to communicate the task to the rest of the group and lead them to complete the mission in 30 minutes or less.

Simple enough.

Well, not exactly. Each mission contained "touch red your dead” obstacles and imaginary land mines that stood between the students and their goals. The students were also given very limited, ambiguous materials to use as resources. What's more, each challenge required significant physical strength, adding another level of confusion when trying to determine how a team could collectively finish the mission. As if adding insult to injury, once the instructions were given, the military officers who served as the day's facilitators quietly faded into the background. Any requests for help--outside of repeating the original instructions--were blatantly ignored.

So, how does all of this translate to the business world? "I'm focused on our students’ re-entry into the workplace," says Emory leadership professor Peter Topping. “When they leave Goizueta a year from now, most of them will return to the workforce as managers or they'll be on the management track. Therefore, it’s important for them to be able to foster team work and to deal with ambiguity." Topping also pointed out that the day's exercises were ultimately about self awareness. “To lead others, you start by leading yourself better."

Wondering how well Emory's MBAs performed when they were brought on base and challenged military-style? Like many MBAs, they exhibited creativity and perseverance. Many failed to plan effectively before tackling an obstacle. Some spent too little time assessing what was before them. Others spent too much time looking at the obstacle, leading to the kind of analysis paralysis that is pervasive at big companies.

Ann Borden--Goizueta Business School

"MBAs are trained to 'go' first," said Full-Time MBA Program Dean Brian Mitchell. "This course teaches them to plan first."

After a long day under a hot Georgia sun, the MBAs (who, by the way, just started their program two months ago) were more energized than when the day first began. Sure, hardly any of the obstacles were defeated, but the students undeniably left Fort Benning with new perspectives.

Reuben Weislogel, who worked in investment management before enrolling at Goizueta, said he learned more about his personal leadership style. Having the opportunity to lead a mission and to see how others led, "I learned that my leadership style is to set up the situation, lay out the task and tools, ask for input, and then execute."

Nicole Bullock, who had worked as a human resources specialist for International Paper, enjoyed seeing her fellow classmates take on leadership roles and said she saw the importance of quickly adjusting one's leadership style based on the task at hand.

That’s music to Keen's military ears. "We can create a general template, but effective leadership development requires a level of self-awareness and commitment," he says. "Our goal is to prepare students for leadership at all levels. Leadership doesn't come through osmosis. Students must get out there and put their skills and abilities into action."